Syntax

Description

We
use the area element to define each hotspot that’s
clickable or actionable and will act as a link within a client-side image
map . The behavior of a hotspot is similar to a normal
link (the a element) in that it can
be activated with a mouse click or the keyboard, and it’s used to link to
another web page or resource; it’s also similar to the image element
because, as it defines a specific area of a larger image, it requires us
to set an alt attribute for
those using non-visual browsers.

The hit, or
actionable, area of the image is defined using a combination of the shape and coords attributes,
which create the hit area boundaries as a sequence of
x,y coordinate pairings.

Use This For …

This element is used to create clickable or actionable areas on an
image. For example, you might use it to create a graphically rich
navigation mechanism such as a map on which the different countries or
regions are the clickable areas.

Note that not every area needs to be
actionable. It’s perfectly acceptable to use areawithout an href attribute for the purposes
of outlining a given area, and for providing additional help in the form
of a tooltip created using the title attribute. However,
this technique is inaccessible to people who use anything other than a
mouse to navigate the web page, since there will be no mouse hover event
for those users—the usual trigger for the tooltip
display.

Compatibility

Internet Explorer

Firefox

Safari

Opera

5.5

6.0

7.0

1.0

1.5

2.0

1.3

2.0

3.0

9.2

9.5

Full

Full

Full

Full

Full

Full

Full

Full

Full

Full

Full

It causes no
compatibility issues, and has excellent support across all tested
browsers.

In this Section

accesskey
assigns a key to trigger the activation of the link for this area

alt
specifies alternative text for the section of the image defined by this area

coords
specifies x and y coordinates that define the boundaries of an area